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Ministry of State Security (China)

This article is about the Chinese intelligence service. For other uses, see MSS (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with Ministry of Public Security (China).
Ministry of State Security
国家安全部
Seal of the MSS
Ministry overview
Formed1 July 1983 (1983-07-01)
Preceding agencies
  • Central Special Branch
  • Central Social Affairs Department
  • Central Investigation Department
TypeConstituent Department of the State Council
JurisdictionPeople's Republic of China (including Hong Kong and Macau)
HeadquartersYidongyuan
No. 100 Xiyuan, Haidian, Beijing, China[1][2]
39°59′32″N 116°16′42″E / 39.9921°N 116.2783°E / 39.9921; 116.2783
Motto"Serve the people
firmly and purely,
reassure the party,
be willing to contribute,
be able to fight hard and win"
Employees110,000 (Alex Joske)
800,000 (FBI estimate per Calder Walton)[3]
Annual budgetClassified
Minister responsible
Deputy Ministers responsible
  • Tang Dai
  • Shi Haoyong
  • Yuan Yiku
Ministry executive
  • Nie Furu, Head of Political Department
Parent organizationCentral National Security Commission
Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission
Child agencies
Websitewww.12339.gov.cn Edit this at Wikidata
Footnotes
Chinese name
Simplified Chinese国家安全部
Traditional Chinese國家安全部
Literal meaningState Security Ministry
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinGuójiā Ānquán Bù

The Ministry of State Security[a] (MSS) is the principal civilian intelligence and security service of the People's Republic of China, responsible for foreign intelligence, counterintelligence, and defense of the political security and honor of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). One of the largest and most secretive intelligence organizations in the world, it maintains powerful semi-autonomous branches at the provincial, city, municipality and township levels throughout China.[2][4][5][6] The ministry's headquarters, Yidongyuan, is a large compound in Beijing's Haidian district.

The origins of the MSS begin with the CCP's Central Special Operations Division[b], better known as the Teke, which was replaced by the Central Social Affairs Department from 1936 through the proclamation of the People's Republic in 1949. In 1955, the department was replaced with the Central Investigation Department, which existed in various configurations through the Cultural Revolution to 1983, when it was merged with counterintelligence elements of the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) to form the MSS.

The contemporary MSS is an all-source intelligence organization with a broad mandate and expansive authorities to undertake global campaigns of espionage and covert action on the so-called "hidden front."[7] Within China, the ministry leverages extrajudicial law enforcement authorities to achieve its domestic objectives: Its State Security Police serve as a secret police authorized to detain and interrogate people in what is known as "an invitation to tea."[8] Those remanded by state security are detained in the ministry's own detention facilities.[9][10]

Outside the mainland, the ministry is best known for its numerous advanced persistent threat groups, some outsourced to contractors, which carry out prolific industrial and cyber espionage campaigns.[11][12][7] The ministry has also been implicated in political and transnational repression and harassment of dissidents abroad. Its influence operations, often orchestrated in collaboration with the United Front Work Department, have led national policy, originating phrases like "China's peaceful rise" and "great changes unseen in a century", which have become staples of official PRC political rhetoric.[13]

Once rarely acknowledged, in recent years the ministry has drastically increased its public profile, publishing a manga series, and a recruitment video starring Li Yifeng.[8] While its inner workings remain opaque, propaganda posters about national security branded with the ministry's seal are now a common sight on billboards and public transit in Chinese cities, and its daily WeChat posts receive millions of views.[14] The ministry is currently estimated to have at least 110,000 employees, with 10,000 reporting directly to MSS headquarters and 100,000 spread across its dozens of semi-autonomous bureaus.

  1. ^ "国家税务总局关于国务院各部门机关后勤体制改革有关税收政策具体问题的通知" [Notice of the State Administration of Taxation on Specific Issues Concerning Taxation Policies Related to the Reform of the Logistics System of Departments and Organs of the State Council]. State Administration of Taxation. August 30, 2000. Archived from the original on 2024-09-02. 中央国家机关后勤改革享受税收政策汽车修理厂: １． 铁道部汽车修理厂（大兴县西红门）；２． 新华社新华汽车维修中心（海淀区四季青板井）；３． 国管局汽车修理厂（丰台区西五里店１７８号）；４． 外交部汽车修理厂（东城区外交部街丙31号）；５． 国家安全部行管局汽车修理厂（海淀区西苑１００号）；６． 国家安全部迅捷汽车修理厂（海淀区西苑甲１号对面）； [Central government agencies’ logistics institutions that benefit from tax policies in the category of auto shops: 1. Railway Ministry auto repair shop (Daxing County Xihongmen); 2. Xinhua News Agency Xinhua Auto Repair Center (Haidian District Sijiqing Banjing); 3. State Administration Bureau auto repair shop (Fengtai District Xiwulidian No. 178); 4. Ministry of Foreign Affairs auto repair shop (Dongcheng District Foreign Affairs Street C No. 31); 5. State Security Bureau Administration auto repair shop (Haidian District Xiyuan No. 100);]
  2. ^ a b Guo, Xuezhi (2012). "9 - The Intelligence Apparatus and Services under the People's Republic of China". China's Security State: Philosophy, Evolution, and Politics. Cambridge University Press. p. 363. doi:10.1017/CBO9781139150897.010. ISBN 978-1-107-02323-9. The MSS headquarters was located where the previous CID was, at No. 100 Xiyuan, a location with tight security in the western suburbs of Beijing
  3. ^ Greitens 2025.
  4. ^ Mattis, Peter (9 July 2017). "Everything We Know about China's Secretive State Security Bureau". The National Interest. Archived from the original on 9 November 2020. Retrieved 22 July 2022.
  5. ^ Eftimiades, Nicholas (2017-07-28). Chinese Intelligence Operations: Espionage Damage Assessment Branch, US Defence Intelligence Agency. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-135-24017-2. OCLC 1118472067. Archived from the original on 2020-08-23. Retrieved 2020-05-10.
  6. ^ Mattis, Peter; Brazil, Matthew (2019-11-15). Chinese Communist Espionage: An Intelligence Primer. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-68247-304-7. OCLC 1117319580.
  7. ^ a b Friis, Gaute; Quak, Nickson; Shah, Sara; Stewart, Elliot (2024-06-21). "Countering China's Use of Private Firms in Covert Information Operations" (PDF). Stanford University Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2025-01-30. Retrieved 2025-02-03.
  8. ^ a b Brar, Aadil (2024-02-27). "China's spy comic teaches citizens how to catch foreign agents". Newsweek. Retrieved 2025-02-03.
  9. ^ Joske, Alex (2022). Spies and Lies: How China's Greatest Covert Operations Fooled the World. Hardie Grant Books. pp. 24–29, 117. ISBN 978-1-74358-900-7. OCLC 1347020692.
  10. ^ Guo, Xuezhi (2012). China's Security State: Philosophy, Evolution, and Politics. Cambridge University Press. p. 368. ISBN 978-1-107-02323-9. Like the MPS, the MSS has a wide scope of authority in domestic intelligence activities, and that authority overlaps with the law enforcement responsibilities of the MPS. Thus, the MSS not only is involved in police functions (similar to the U.S. FBI) but also fulfills other roles, such as court hearings (akin to the role of the judiciary in Western democracies).
  11. ^ Perlroth, Nicole (2021-07-19). "How China Transformed Into a Prime Cyber Threat to the U.S." The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 2023-05-13. Retrieved 2023-05-13.
  12. ^ Dilanian, Ken (October 9, 2018). "They're back: Chinese hackers are stealing from U.S. firms again". NBC News. Archived from the original on 2022-05-26. Retrieved 2023-05-13. Dmitri Alperovitch said his firm is observing an increase in hacks by China's Ministry of State Security, which he says is far more adept and proficient than the People's Liberation Army, which previously had conducted most of the hacks into private Western companies. "That's troubling, because they've always been the better actor," he said.
  13. ^ "你了解"国安警察"吗？" [Do you know about the "national security police"?]. Shijiazhuang Municipal People's Government (in Chinese). 2023-05-12. Retrieved 2025-01-27. [The state security organs have always been closely linked to the intelligence work of the "hidden front". The covert front and the party go hand in hand, and with the party, there is the party's intelligence and defense work.]
  14. ^ "Under Xi Jinping, China's powerful spy agency drastically raises its public profile". The Economic Times. 2024-04-22. ISSN 0013-0389. Retrieved 2025-02-03.


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